


What Did You Do After The War?

by GoonMan13



Category: Vorkosigan Saga - Lois McMaster Bujold
Genre: Beta Colony, Borders of Infinity, F/M, Marilac, Orb of Unearthly Delights, Quaddies, Union of Free Habitats
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-16
Updated: 2019-04-16
Packaged: 2020-01-14 21:17:03
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 20,800
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18484528
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GoonMan13/pseuds/GoonMan13
Summary: Open the story to see what galactic war looks like from the Marilacan perspective. Keep reading to find out what what the licensed practical sexuality therapists really do at the Orb of Unearthly Delights, and then check in with everyone’s favorite hermaphrodite portmaster and its beloved four-handed hammer dulcimer player.





	What Did You Do After The War?

João pressed a blinking button on his console, and the vidscreen came to life.

“Hello freighter Su...um…”

“...Susurrus,” João said in unison with the slender, dark skinned woman with aquamarine hair on his screen.

“Susurrus,” she repeated, “right… This is the repair scow Rachne. Sounds like you’re looking for a deep clean and a quarantine certificate.”

“That’s right,” he said.

Something about the woman seemed out of the ordinary, and João realized it was the way her bright blue curls were falling free around her head. And then it seemed familiar after all. Unconsciously, João rubbed his bald head, just beside one of the neural implants that marked him as a jump ship pilot capable of guiding a spaceship through a wormhole.

She was saying, “the Rachne is one of just two ships in the Marilac system certified to clean you out, all the way up to Vega Station or Kline Station deep quarantine standards. The cost is…”

“...it’s already been paid for,” João clarified.

The woman looked down at her screen for a moment, then said “so it has.” And then, “there seems to be a mistake, um, Mister…” she looked up.

“João,” he said.

“I’m Beryl, thanks. But this is too much. It doesn’t cost this much.”

“It’s going to be a tougher job than usual,” João said. “I’ll explain once we start.”

“Okay, I've got loans to pay, so I’m not going to complain about extra money. You’ll have to board the Rachne while we depressurize your ship, and then my drones will scour every interior surface with UV before we hit the whole ship with gamma.”

“Sounds good,” João responded.

“Just one thing, though,” Beryl said. “I keep the artificial gravity off at all times on the Rachne. That’s not really up for negotiation. That going to be a problem?”

João reached down to pull a small magnetic thermometer off his console, then lifted and twirled it. As it spun continuously next to his face, Beryl’s eyes went wide, and João said, “nope, I prefer microgravity myself. What’s the point of being off planet if you keep the artificial grav on all the time?”

Beryl smiled. “I think I’m going to like you, Mister João. When you come aboard, please bring anything that might be damaged by the radiation. It should take about eighteen hours. I can feed you, and there’s a space where you can sleep, but my quarters here are pretty tight.”

“It may be longer than that, but I'm sure the Rachne will be fine.”

“Great, I'll bring her in to dock with you in…” Beryl glanced down “...about two hours.” She waved as she cut the comm, and in that instant before the screen went black, João had the impression that her hand was purple.

* * *

João studied the Rachne as it came in to dock. The repair scow was spherical, with a set of working arms arrayed in a large, forward-facing circle. Within the arms, João saw a hemicircular window corresponding to the dome-shaped crew area that occupied half of the scow. As the airlock below the large window connected, João observed how his ship dwarfed the Rachne. The Susurrus was not an especially large freighter, but the Rachne was about as small as any spacecraft could be. Repair scows like it were routinely attached to the side of larger ships and carried around the galaxy like commensal organisms.

“Welcome aboard,” Beryl said as João pushed his trunk ahead of him through the airlock.

“Thank you. Do you want to inspect my trunk now?” João asked.

“We’ll have plenty of time for that,” Beryl said as she grabbed the trunk with one hand, her other hand gripping a handle on the wall, and tossed it to an open space on an adjoining wall.

João had several impressions, all within those first few seconds on the Rachne. He was impressed—his trunk was fairly heavy, but Beryl’s throw had been gentle and precise, giving just the right amount of force and rotation for the trunk to come to rest against the wall without bouncing. She must be very experienced with microgravity.

She had tossed it with her left arm which was, indeed, a lustrous dark blue-purple, the hand shaped like a normal hand, but without fingernails. Artificial arms were unusual with the war now over for more than a year and limb regrowth so readily available.

There was something odd about her legs. They weren’t moving—they were just tucked under her, bare feet at her bottom.

And she was beautiful, her curly aquamarine hair and long blue lashes a shocking contrast to her dark skin and deep brown eyes.

“Alright, let’s get the first things out of the way,” Beryl said.

João started to say “My ship…,” but Beryl said, “I had an unfortunate experience with some really incompetent mercenaries on the first day of the war, even before Cetaganda invaded. Back during that mercenary attack they used as a pretext to bring their whole fleet in to ‘save’ us. I took a nerve disruptor to the legs, and a plasma arc burned off my hand. You can see the scar from the plasma on the ceiling.”

João looked in the direction she pointed, but all he could think to say was, “there isn’t really a ceiling. Or an ‘up’ in here.”

“Yeah, I’ve been on the float for over seven years now. The easiest way to get around, with every nerve in my legs completely dead.” She turned a little, and he spotted a flash of metal near each foot. Beryl had sewn snaps on each ankle and on the seat of her coveralls to keep her feet pinned back.

“So that’s why the A.G. stays off,” she continued. “I guess I stopped needing directions like ‘up’ and ‘down’ somewhere along the way.” A concerned look crossed Beryl’s face. “That’s not going to make you sick, is it?”

“No,” João laughed. “I told you, I spend a lot of time in microgravity. It kind of became an issue in my last job, actually.”

“Oh yeah?”

“Yeah…so, about my ship.” João paused. “The Susurrus has a lot of...modifications is the wrong word because she was built that way. More like...features. Unusual features, I guess you’d say.”

“Okaaaaaaay…” Beryl said.

“Maybe we should just let your drones get started. But I know your protocol is to use the Rachne to scan the ship while they’re working, and you are going to find some...nonstandard spaces. Um...voids. I tried to open up access to all of them for the drones.”

Beryl was staring at him. João said, “funny thing, a place like Vega Station or Kline Station isn’t going to bat an eyelash at some weird empty spaces in a freighter, as long as you can prove that they’ve all been sanitized.”

“Alright, mister mysterious João, the smuggler. I’ll kill all the viruses and mold spores in your hidden chambers. Now, there’s one more thing we need to settle.”

“What’s that?” João asked.

“I told you there’s a place for you to sleep. And there’s a place for me to sleep. But it’s the same place.” Beryl gestured toward her sleep sack. “This is just a small repair scow. You’re my guest, so you get to choose when to sleep in my bunk. I’ll accommodate your schedule, but I do want to plan ahead. When will you want to sleep?”

“I'm on standard orbital station time, so my day is mostly done,” João answered.

“I figured,” Beryl said. “Well, let's get the job going, and then eat a meal. My lunch and your dinner, I guess.”

João patched control of the Susurrus to the Rachne’s auxiliary console, while Beryl opened a box containing about fifty small drones. She activated them and sent them streaming out the airlock into the freighter. Then she closed the airlock and moved to the main console to fly the Rachne back away from the Susurrus.

The pilot’s chair had been removed, so Beryl just floated there. As the Rachne pushed back from the freighter, João felt no acceleration—the artificial gravity unit’s inertial dampeners were still operating, it was only the false gravity that was off.

Once they’d taken their station about half a kilometer from the freighter, João issued the command to open all of the airlocks on the Susurrus. The puffs of gas and ice crystals around the ship flashed diamond rainbows in the sun, beautiful and brief. As they faded to nothing, he did some quick estimates and figured that every molecule of air he’d just released had probably been in and out of his lungs about 100 times over the last few years.

João closed the airlocks, but he did not fill the ship with the new “certified clean air” waiting in the environmental system tanks—the drones were designed for vacuum. Beryl issued the command to start the drones’ automated cleaning program, and their work was essentially done. João and Beryl each occupied a few minutes making sure everything was working correctly, and then Beryl said, “want your dinner?”

They took turns operating her culinary unit. Such devices manufactured food from a supply of basic starches, fats, proteins, etc., with varying degrees of palatability. This one was clearly an upgrade—João had seen models like it on diplomatic transports equipped to carry government ministers. João’s “tofu and vegetables with pressed rice cubes” was quite good.

“That thing can feed thirty. Do you have company often?” João asked.

“No, but they don’t make the high quality units any smaller.” Beryl smiled. “I got tired of the twelve meals my original culinary unit could make. I swear I'll never eat oatmeal or anything with blue cheese flavor ever again. This unit has three thousand options, and it works in zero G. I bought it with one of those new low interest economic recovery loans.”

They drifted over to the large window and looked out at the Susurrus as they ate.

“So, what did you do during the war?” João’s question drew a smile from Beryl. _What Did You Do During The War_ was one of the most popular vid series on Marilac.

“I spent it here, on the Rachne. I was here when those mercenaries attacked me. It happened while I was docked at the wormhole station. The smaller one, the customs station, not the military station. I have no idea why they were trying to seize a repair scow.”

João said, “from what I’ve heard about that outfit, I’m not sure even they could tell you why they were doing whatever they did.”

Beryl continued, “there was a sudden comms blackout, which made me nervous, so I had my stunner with me. And I had the gravity off, as usual. That saved my life. When they overrode my airlock and charged in, I jumped and the bitch with the nerve disruptor fired where I had just been. I don’t think she expected me to move the way I did. I stunned her, and then her asshole friend fired his plasma arc before I shot him too.”

João said, “there are lots of stories like yours. Those mercenaries’ habit of firing first with lethal weapons turned the galaxy against Cetaganda, almost before they even entered the war.”

“If either of them had used a stunner, the shots they fired would have knocked me out, and I’d have ended up in prison on Dagoola IV, or worse.”  Beryl popped a red ball that smelled spicy and fried in her mouth, chewed, and said, “I managed to shove them out my airlock, into the station’s docking hallway. Then I launched the Rachne and flew toward a military rendez-vous point out by the third gas giant. It took a day and a half, and by the time I got there I was unconscious and nearly dead. I was in shock, and my intestines had stopped working because of the nerve disruptor, so my body was going toxic.”

“I woke up in sick bay on the heavy cruiser Laurent, and found out we were at war with Cetaganda. While I was there, the doctors re-innervated my organs, so at least I could eat. And the crew made me an arm. Here...” Beryl closed the lid of her food container and left it floating by the window as she pushed off toward the back wall. She opened a cabinet and brought out a metal arm. This one was purely utilitarian, in contrast to the sleek blue-purple arm she was wearing.

Beryl pressed a button near her left elbow and her blue-purple arm went still. She slid it off and inserted her shortened forearm into the metal arm. “It’s been a while,” she said as she flexed the fingers and rotated the wrist. Then the arm began to beep, and she looked at a readout on the back of the hand. “Low battery. Figures,” Beryl said with a wry smile, and she returned it to its cabinet.

She clasped the blue-purple arm to her body with her stump and pushed against the back wall. As she floated back toward him, João said, “can I see that?”

“Sure.” She flipped the arm to him, then resumed eating, holding the food container to her chest with her stump.

“It’s beautiful,” João said.

“Yeah, and it’s a big improvement. That other one is just an arm, it doesn’t have any sensation. Just what the Laurent's engineers could whip up in a hurry. This one has touch, temperature, everything. It’s pretty much a normal arm.”

João returned it, and before she slid her handless forearm in, João saw two metal buttons on her stump—counterparts to the neural implants on his own head. When she activated it, the cuff around her elbow squeezed tight and the arm came alive, the forearm twisting, fingers curling, and wrist flexing all at once. The contrast with the other arm was striking. The metal arm had probably given her reasonable dexterity, but this one conveyed every nuance of communication a human hand could make.

Beryl continued, “the medical staff wanted me to stay in sick bay until they could transfer me to a clinic that could fix my legs, but after a few weeks it seemed pretty obvious that this was going to be a long war. And then I overheard some officers talking about repairs that were needed, and I made my decision. I borrowed a float pallet, pushed myself to the Rachne, and reported for duty. I spent the rest of the war repairing the Marilac fleet while we tried to outrun and outlast the Cetagandans.”

“So how about you, mister João? What did you do during the war?”

João pointed out the window at the Susurrus. “I was there.” He was silent for a while. Then he said “I’m not allowed to talk about it.” Beryl took the empty food containers over to the recycler. When she returned, João said, “I’m sorry. It’s not fair to ask you, and then not tell you my side of it.”

“That’s OK. I understand,” Beryl said.

“Thank you,” João said, and he reached out, but when he touched her blue-purple hand, Beryl flinched and pulled back as if stung.

“I'm sorry,” they said at the same time, and Beryl added, “I guess I'm not really used to having sensation in that hand…Anyway, it’s probably time to let you get to sleep.”

João began getting ready. The combined sonic shower/sonic toilet was barely a closet, a claustrophobic’s nightmare. And there was nowhere to change, so he had to ask Beryl to turn away when he undressed, and again when he exited the shower and put on a fresh set of coveralls.

At Beryl’s direction, João got into her sleep sack. It smelled lightly, and pleasantly, of apples. Beryl turned down the lights in the Rachne, and João’s last impression before he drew a thin, dark curtain across the cubby in which he floated was that Beryl’s aquamarine hair was aglow.

When he awoke and pushed the curtain aside, he saw that Beryl was at the command console. Her hair was now a cloud of glowing green curls. João was about to greet her, but something made him stop. Her arms and legs hung free, relaxed; her back was slightly curled. João’s throat constricted and his pulse jumped because he thought she might be dead, but he saw her stir a little as she breathed.

He tried to move quietly, but the rustle when he exited the sleepsack was enough to startle her awake. She pushed on the console with one hand, turning quickly to face him, but her limp legs over-rotated and pulled her around further than she had intended. Using the hand on the console to pull this time, she rotated back to face him. Then she tucked her legs up with the practiced ease of someone tucking back a lock of hair that drifts over their eyes. She first grabbed one leg under the knee, and raised it up to her chest. Then she ran her hand down her shin to grab her ankle, and swung the foot back to her posterior, where her other hand was waiting to fasten the snap. And then she did the same with the other leg. All told, it took about four seconds.

“Good morning,” she said, and rubbed her eyes.

“I’m sorry to wake you,” João said. “And to make you sleep out here.”

“I don’t mind,” Beryl said, and she gave him a brief, weak smile as she turned up the lights. “I do it all the time, maybe as often as I use the sack. It's kind of embarrassing when I drift out of reach of anything, and have to 'swim’ to the nearest wall.”

Beryl’s face hardened, and she said, “I scanned your ship. It has a reinforced inner hull, like a warship, not a freighter. And I saw those 'nonstandard spaces’ you talked about. The outer hull doesn't match the shape of the inner hull. It couldn't look more suspicious. How the hell did you get past the wormhole station? Or any station that scans you?”

“I’ve turned off the mass detector jammers for you,” he said.

Beryl said, “those must be some kind of special jammers to make this ship look ordinary.”

“Beta Colony’s finest,” João said.

Beryl gave him a searching look. “Who are you, mister João? Some kind of war profiteer?”

João laughed bitterly. “No, I did everything for Mother Marilac, whether I wanted to or not.”

João rubbed his eyes with his fingertips, then with the heels of his hands, and sighed. He looked up at Beryl, and softly said, “to hell with it. What’s the point of secrecy now that the war is over?” He looked away. “What did I do during the war? I was commandeered by Zelaya Trouba.”

“You mean the Susurrus?” she asked.

“No. Me. I was commandeered. As her personal chauffeur. The Susurrus came along later.” João took a deep breath. “I was on Komarr, about to finish my training. Zelaya came to my apartment and said ‘Marilac has been attacked. Your planet needs you.’ I think I was the only Marilacan jump pilot on Komarr. So I agreed to come with her.”

“Later on, it wasn’t voluntary. I told her I wanted out. But there are...ways to break a jump pilot.” João swallowed. “Zelaya can be very persuasive.”

“So I’ve heard,” Beryl said. “She negotiated the armistice and the reparations, right?”

“Yeah. She’s...formidable.” João grimaced.

“So were you just jetting around the galaxy with her, doing diplomacy?” Beryl asked.

“That was a lot of it,” João answered. “But we did a little more than just that. We came in and out of Marilac space a couple of times.”

Beryl raised a green eyebrow. “Through the blockade? How did you manage that?”

João looked out the window. “The Susurrus is a special tool...”

They stared at it in silence. Then Beryl said, “so what did you bring us on those smuggling missions?”

He looked back at her. “The first time? 1200 veterans of the planetary defense, back from Dagoola IV, after the prison break.”

“That was you? You were there?” Beryl’s eyes were wide.

“Not for any of the events in _The Greatest Escape_ ,” João said, referencing a popular holovid about the prison break. “We played our part before and after. Especially after, when we brought those former prisoners back to the Marilacan fleet.”

“I always wondered how they just showed up,” Beryl said. “That has to be a great story.”

“It has its moments… Listen, why don’t we keep going with the job. I’ll tell you more when we’re idle again,” João said. “But I’m guessing your drones have finished their first pass…”

“...what do you mean, ‘first pass?’” Beryl asked. “Yeah, they’re done. And they got everywhere. The one thing I didn’t find was any inaccessible spaces.”

“Can you direct them to move into the crew compartments?” João moved to the auxiliary console.

“They’re already all there, by the main airlock where I’ll collect them,” she said.

“Good, then it’s time to reconfigure the Susurrus.”

“Reconfigure?” Beryl asked.

“I’ll show you. Are you sure all your drones are over by the airlock? None between the hulls?” João asked, and Beryl nodded. João issued some commands, and the freighter out their window began to change. Large pieces of the hull began to rearrange, like a jigsaw puzzle slowly solving itself.

 “I’ve never watched this from outside.” João said. “It’s mesmerizing.”

“How?…” Beryl began to ask a question, but could not think of how to finish it.

“The Susurrus is three different freighters,” João explained. “You’ve already cleaned it in its Emden class configuration. In about half an hour, it will be an RM-1384, and we can start the drones up again. And then it will become a Baotou class ship, and we’ll do it all again.”

João turned to face Beryl. “Would you mind doing three separate quarantine certificates?”

Beryl looked at him, began to laugh, and then looked back at the ship, still laughing. “You didn’t pay me triple,” she said through a grin.

“I told Zelaya one and a half might not be enough, but she…”

Beryl cut him off, “...no I’ll do it, for what I’ve already been paid, plus the Dagoola story.”

They stared at the Susurrus as a particularly large piece of the outer hull shifted positions. “It looks like ice floes,” Beryl said, “in the south polar sea.”

João nodded, and they watched the ship a little longer.

“OK, Dagoola...” he began.

“Would you like some breakfast first?” Beryl asked.

“Sure. And some coffee?”

“I don’t carry coffee, only high-caf matcha,” Beryl said.

“The real stuff? Like they grow around Mount Solimões?” he asked. Beryl confirmed it was, and João enthusiastically accepted.

A few minutes later they were in front of the window again with “cheese omelette bites” and extra-large bulbs of Marilacan matcha. João took a sip. “This is so much better than the galactic standard coffee they serve at diplomatic functions.”

“OK, Dagoola...” João said. “Um, let me give a little background first. Zelaya had several goals. We tried to generate enough external pressure from the rest of the galaxy to force Cetaganda out of Marilac. We also tried to cause them problems elsewhere, spread them thin, though they did a lot of that themselves. And of course we tried to support all of you here the best we could. Zelaya feared the resistance would capitulate before she could mobilize the galaxy.”

“It was a close thing,” Beryl said. “When that Betan dreadnaught came through the wormhole at the end there, that was the most beautiful thing I have ever seen. I’m not sure we could have held out much longer.”

“And we were very conscious of the strain on you all, believe me,” João responded. “That’s why it felt so important to get you some help along the way…” At that moment, a notification sounded on the auxiliary console. João moved over to look at it. “The reconfiguration is done. You can start the drones.”

That task took a couple of minutes. When they were back at the window with their breakfasts, João said, “OK, Dagoola,” and Beryl laughed.

João considered. “You know, I'm not really sure where to start.”

Beryl laughed again. “Why don't you start at the very beginning? If the drones have to go around once more after this, we’ve got lots of time to kill, and I bet your story is more interesting than a list of ship repairs I did.”

Beryl unsnapped her ankles and pushed her bare feet out away from her. João watched the fabric of the coveralls spread and ripple around her thin legs. Beryl saw his gaze, and said, “the doctors don’t like my legs being folded up all day.” She reached over and squeezed his hand. “Go ahead with the story.”

So João started at the beginning, on Komarr. He told Beryl how Zelaya had obtained a fast little yacht, which the Barrayaran government had impounded several years earlier, during the Komarran Revolt. “It was fun to fly, but conspicuous.”

He walked her through their initial diplomatic missions, starting with a successful trip to the planet Pol. But they were unable to convince Pol’s neighbor Vervain to help them, despite (or maybe because of) Cetaganda’s failed attempt to invade Vervain a couple of years earlier. “Zelaya was incredibly disappointed. I remember she said, ‘if we can’t get Vervain, this is going to take at least two years.’ It turned out to be a lot longer.”

Their next stop was Jackson’s Whole, where Zelaya recruited some mercenaries. “I remember those guys,” Beryl said. “They were a nightmare. They arrived too late to really help—the fortress at Fallow Core had already fallen, so Cetaganda held the planet. The fleet was out hiding around the gas giants and the asteroids, trying to do what damage we could. Those assholes showed up and wanted to take over, take command. Wouldn’t take orders. And they were reckless. Admiral Dumont sent them packing pretty quickly.”

“I think Zelaya learned a lot from that experience,” João said. Then he paused, looking ill. “I’m not going to talk about the rest of what we did on Jackson’s Whole. That’s an awful place. I’m never going back there again.”

João looked out the window. “And then we were attacked on our way out. The little Komarran yacht was so recognizable, it was a real liability. At least it was fast. I barely got us out of the ambush, through the wormhole. That’s where I told Zelaya that I wanted to quit. And she told me...what she would do to me...if I tried.”

Beryl reached out to hold João’s hand. He stiffened for an instant, then relaxed and looked at her, forcing a smile. “Anyway, I got us to Escobar and things got better after that. They promised to aid us however they could, short of openly declaring war on Cetaganda. That’s where Zelaya bought the auto-mining equipment she sent you.”

“That helped us so much,” Beryl told him. “It made a huge difference. We set the robotic fabricator to start creating more fabricators, and every time one popped out, we put it on another asteroid or moon and set that one to make more.  Within a month we had about two hundred of them, all through the system. And the chem scoops let us pull basic chemicals from the gas giants and their moons. That changed the war for us. We could resupply ourselves.”

“I wish we had known earlier that’s what you really needed,” João said. “It took us about a year to get those to you, right?” Beryl confirmed, and João said, “we definitely should have started with the mining equipment, instead of sending you those assholes from Jackson’s Whole.”

“And that was the other thing,” Beryl said. “The mining equipment was delivered by the Dendarii mercenaries. They were great. I heard the Dendarii admiral really helped us improve our strategy. I can’t remember his name.”

João looked over at Beryl, surprised. “Little guy, about my age? Talks really fast?”

“You mean Naismith?” Beryl asked. “No, it wasn’t him. The man I’m talking about is a lot older.”

“Oh, you mean Commodore Tung.”

“Yeah, that was him,” Beryl confirmed. “From what I heard, he and Admiral Dumont would stay up all night talking military history.” Beryl took a sip of matcha. “We got a lot more aggressive after Dumont met Tung. Everyone understood that Cetaganda held all the strategically important points, and that they couldn’t catch us, hiding out in the rest of the system. It’s funny, when you look at a wormhole nexus map, you forget how big everything is. Even one solar system, like Marilac’s, is enormous. There was no way Cetaganda could try to hunt us down and still hold the wormholes and the planet. Not without committing a lot more ships to the invasion, and they didn’t want to do that. But as long as we were out there, attacking whenever we could, they couldn’t declare the war over.”

Beryl continued, “Admiral Dumont understood that much from the beginning. We all did. But Tung helped us understand the economics of the war. He suggested we start targeting non-Cetagandan commercial traffic.”

“Cetaganda called it ‘piracy,’ as if this wasn’t our own home,” João said. “You all managed to shut down a lot of the trade through the Marilac system, and forced the rest into expensive armed convoys. That, and the economic sanctions Zelaya negotiated, raised the prices of a lot of their imports. That was really unpopular in Xi Ceta and the rest of the Cetagandan empire.“

“Fuck them,” Beryl said. “They sent their damned Ghem warriors here killing civilians, trying to take everything that's ours, and then they were inconvenienced by some high prices…”

They were silent for a while, just drinking their matcha.

João said, “where was I? Escobar?” When Beryl nodded, João explained that he and Zelaya had taken a diplomatic transport to Beta Colony, where they were given the Susurrus. It was an experimental design. “We had three Betan engineers with us on the shakedown cruise over to Tau Ceti, in case anything went wrong.” The ship was exactly what they needed. “We were so much harder to track or follow on the Susurrus. Can you imagine trying to keep tabs on every Emden, Baotou, or RM-1384 you encounter? The galaxy is full of them.”

On one of their first days on the Susurrus, João turned off the artificial gravity on the bridge. “Zelaya threw up. It turns out she gets sick in microgravity. So I left the gravity off most if the time. It really pissed her off, for the bridge to be off limits to her whenever I felt like it. I know it was kind of juvenile, but from then on she left me alone when I was up there with the gravity off.”

João told Beryl that Escobar, Beta Colony, Tau Ceti, and Barrayar formed the heart of the pro-Marilac coalition. “It’s funny, we never visited the Barrayarans. It was like their support was just a given, from the beginning. Come to think of it, I don’t know what Zelaya was doing on their planet Komarr in the first place, when the war started.” Instead, the year before the Dagoola mission was spent on diplomatic trips to other potential allies, “Earth, Orient IV, Lairouba, Mahata Solaris. But we always had the Marilacan prisoners on our minds.”

Zelaya and João met with the Dendarii at Tau Ceti to plan the prison break. “That’s where I met Admiral Naismith. He’s an incredibly intense person. He and Zelaya had this love-hate thing. There was mutual respect, but they really didn’t like each other. It was like putting two cats in a small room.” Beryl laughed, as João continued, “... lots of hissing and spitting.”

João said, “Zelaya’s plan was for them to extract only Guy Tremont, the hero of Fallow Core. Naismith wanted to do more, and he wasn’t good at hiding it. Zelaya would rage in private, on the Susurrus, saying that he was going to screw it all up.”

“What was her problem?” Beryl asked.

“I agreed with her,” João said, and Beryl looked shocked. João became defensive. “It’s hard to explain this to anyone who has watched _The Greatest Escape_ , and knows that Tremont was dying, and that the Dendarii actually managed to break out all of the 10,000 prisoners. But that seemed impossible at the time. Zelaya was convinced of the symbolic value of reaching into the Cetagandan empire and pulling someone out of their supposedly impregnable prison. And since she thought we couldn’t get them all, it was better symbolically to choose one person.”

Beryl still looked dubious. João was starting to raise his voice. “We thought a lot of our hard work would be lost—the diplomatic progress, I mean—if they tried to do too much, and got shot down.”

“OK,” Beryl said, and took João’s hand in hers. They both looked down at their hands, surprised—she’d reached out with her blue-purple hand. They’d been careful to only let him contact her real hand ever since the previous day when she’d flinched at his touch.

The hand was cold and the blue-purple covering was much tougher, less resilient than human skin. João squeezed the artificial hand, and Beryl smiled.

João took a breath, then said, “it was Commodore Tung who convinced Zelaya to give the go-ahead. She figured that he would actually command the Dendarii through the mission, since Naismith had that crazy plan of getting himself captured and put on Dagoola as a prisoner. She said, ‘at least an adult will be in charge.’ I guess we all underestimated Naismith’s ability to command his fleet while marooned, naked and friendless, in a prison camp...”

At that moment a notification sounded on the main console, and Beryl moved over to check it. “One of the drones found something,” Beryl said. She pulled up the video, and recoiled from the screen.

They could see a human figure, but it was broken, limbs hanging wrong. The drone’s imaging system used only ultraviolet light, and the body was ghostly and strange in black-and-white on the screen, with odd shadows and reflections.

“What is that?” Beryl asked.

“That is a Ghem assassin,” João said. “He must have been stuck in the hull and came free when the ship reconfigured.” João went silent, and Beryl turned to look at him. “I killed him,” João added very quietly.

“At Jackson’s Whole?” Beryl asked.

“No,” João said, “the Cetagandans hired Jacksonians for that job. This one and his friends came after us much later, after the Dagoola mission. You know you’re living right when they send real Ghem assassins to kill you. That was the last time we ever used the RM-1384 configuration. After they sent that death squad, we figured we'd better stick to the Emden and Baotou configurations. Zelaya and I wondered where he ended up when we reconfigured the ship, and figured he probably floated out between hull segments into space. I guess he was caught between two chunks of the hull, and he’s been there ever since.”

They stared at the corpse for a few seconds. Beryl said, “you have to hand it to the Cetagandans, they make great environmental suits. It’s not even torn.”

“We should probably get him out of there,” João said.

“Yeah…” Beryl tucked back her limp legs and snapped her ankle snaps. “I think this is a job for Pee-Wee.” In an undertone, she muttered, “it’s not his first corpse retrieval.”

Out of a locker on the side wall, Beryl removed a case like the one that had held the drones. She opened it, revealing a crab-shaped robot about a meter wide, and an array of additional arms.

“Pee-Wee has pretty good artificial intelligence,” she said as she activated it. “Hello, Pee-Wee. This is going to be a mechanical manipulation job, in vacuum and zero gravity, and with a short passage between two ships. Please select the appropriate arms.”

The robot began pulling its arms off and putting others on, as Beryl continued, “I am going to send you out of the Rachne airlock. I want you to go to the freighter Susurrus, about half a kilometer away. Go to the main airlock and wait to be let in. Then make your way to the location of Drone BYL-118. I will issue further commands at that time. Do you understand?”

In a young boy’s voice, Pee-Wee responded, “yes.”

Beryl opened the inner airlock door. “Please get into the airlock,” she said, and Pee-Wee complied. Its movements were graceful and precise. Beryl cycled the airlock, and they moved over to Beryl’s console, where they could see a Pee-Wee’s-eye-view on a video screen. They watched as Pee-Wee pushed off from the Rachne, then fired a thruster and shot off toward the Susurrus.

Beryl looked over at João. “We’ll be opening the Susurrus airlock and inserting something from the outside, so my protocol says the drones will have to start all over again when the corpse is out.”

The Susurrus was getting bigger at an alarmingly fast rate on Beryl’s screen, and João held his breath until Pee-Wee fired the thruster again, and came in for a soft landing at the airlock.

“Is that OK?” Beryl asked.

“What? Oh, yeah. I guess we’ll be stuck here a little longer.” He reached over and squeezed her hand. “I don’t mind.”

“OK, then open the airlock,” she said with a smile, and João moved over to the auxiliary console to do that.

When Pee-Wee was in, they watched as it began moving slowly through the ship. And João began to talk in a low voice.

“After we dropped off the Dagoola veterans with your fleet, we docked at Vega Station. We needed to have some work done on the Susurrus. Two days into the job, the Cetagandans bribed the work crew. The Susurrus has cameras all over, and Zelaya and I were sitting together on the bridge, and we watched the work crew all leave the ship, and then the Ghem boarded.”

“There were six of them, all wearing that…” João gestured at the corpse on the drone’s camera. “It’s a very light armor. I guess any kind of real space armor would have tripped Vega Station’s weapons detectors. Zelaya ran to her quarters, and in about two minutes she was in half-armor, with the ship’s video cameras all routed to her command helmet. I’ve never seen anyone put on armor that fast, especially alone.”

“She told me to cut the gravity through the whole ship. I guess the synergine she took is a pretty good cure for microgravity sickness, along with all her adrenaline. I could see what she was seeing on my console. She hunted those Ghem methodically, a stunner in one hand and a needler in the other. I’m not sure how she decided which one to use on them; which Ghem would live, stunned, and which would die from the needler.”

“Now and then she’d ask me to open or close a door. Once she asked me to turn the gravity on to two Gs in one room. When she had taken out five of them, we saw that the last one was at the stern. He’d gotten between the hulls and was trying to patch into the control lines to engineering. Zelaya said, ‘João, I’m not sure I can get to him before he does some real damage.’ Her voice was so calm...”

“The Ghem was behind the fusion core, and Zelaya and I were both forward of it, so I set the aft magnetic containment field to pulse off for half a millisecond, four times every second. That wasn’t long enough to allow any plasma to escape containment, but…”

Beryl said, “...the hard radiation...”

“Right,” said João. “It released X-rays, high energy electrons, a little bit of gamma. After about a minute and a half, he started vomiting. And then the seizures came. He was unconscious within five minutes.”

“By then Zelaya was back on the bridge with me. Her eyes were wide, her face was flushed, her lips were bright red, and she was breathing rapidly. It was the most excited I ever saw her. It was really disturbing. When she congratulated me for killing the one between the hulls, I felt so dirty, like bugs were crawling up my back.” João looked away from Beryl. “Dammit, I did my jump pilot training on Komarr for a reason. If I wanted to be a military pilot and be part of killing people, I would have stayed on Marilac.”

João looked down at the console and saw that Pee-Wee had reached the dead Cetagandan assassin. He did not know how long Pee-Wee had been floating there; how long Beryl had been waiting for him. “Go ahead,” he told her.

“Pee-Wee, scan the body for radiation,” Beryl said. Data began to appear on her screen. “Slightly elevated levels. Nothing to worry about.”

“You're not going to bring it in here, are you?” João asked.

“Wasn't planning on it.” Beryl instructed Pee-Wee to strap the body’s legs together, and to strap its arms to its sides. She gave a few more vocal commands, and Pee-Wee began pulling the corpse around the ship by the feet. Pee-Wee was gentle, and progress was slow, but they just watched silently as he brought it to the airlock.

As João issued the commands to let Pee-Wee out of the Susurrus, Beryl placed a roll of plastic sheeting in the Rachne’s airlock and opened the outer door. At her command, Pee-Wee flew back to the Rachne, wrapped the corpse in the plastic, and heat-sealed it to form a body bag.

When their grim cargo was strapped to the side of the Rachne, she let Pee-Wee back in. “Thank you, Pee-Wee. Please disassemble yourself.” Pee-Wee put its arms away and sunk into the foam in its case. Beryl stowed the box and returned to her console to restart the drones.

When that was done, Beryl turned to João and said, “what will we do with the body?”

“Send it to Zelaya, I suppose. She can return it to the Cetagandans for burial.” They both looked out the window at the Susurrus.

A few silent minutes later, Beryl pushed a fresh bulb of matcha into João’s hand, and he realized that he hadn’t noticed when she left him alone at the window.

Then she opened a container of vanilla wafers out of the culinary unit, and João bit into one. “These are really good,” he told her.

“I’ve tasted most of the desserts by now, and this is one of the best,” Beryl responded. “I have a bit of a sweet tooth.” They looked out at the Susurrus, ate cookies, and drank matcha for a minute. Then Beryl asked, “what did you think of _The Greatest Escape_?”

“They did a nice job.” João sipped his matcha. “It was weird to see people I met in real life as characters in a holovid. The actress who played Zelaya was pretty good. Their version of Naismith...the real man is a lot more irritating, but I guess that doesn’t make for a very good holovid. And Suegar was a hell of a lot uglier in real life than the actor who played him.” Beryl laughed, and João said, “I mean, that actor looked like a prophet from old Earth come back to life, with a full beard and everything. In reality, Suegar only had a short line of hairs on his cheek. All the prisoners were clean shaven, with their hair follicles stunned so they wouldn’t grow, but someone must have screwed it up when they got to Suegar.”

“Anyway, _The Greatest Escape_ captured the heart of the story, overall,” João continued. “The only thing that really bothered me was their decision to have Naismith fall in love with Sergeant Beatrice. In real life, that guy couldn’t love anyone but himself. The part about Sergeant Beatrice falling out of a shuttle while saving everyone else in there, that’s true. That’s how she died. But having Naismith himself try to catch her...I doubt he was even on that last shuttle up. I don’t know why they felt like they needed to add a romantic storyline. The real story is good enough.”

João looked at Beryl. “And I still owe you the rest of the story, about what happened after the prison break.”

Beryl smiled and released her ankle snaps, letting her legs drift out again. “I’m looking forward to this,” she said, idly spinning the matcha bulb between her hands.

“I’m not sure it can live up to the buildup,” João said.

“Yeah, our friend in the body bag has added a little spice to your story.”

“Where does _The Greatest Escape_ end?” João asked. “With all the prisoners safely on the Dendarii ships?” Beryl nodded, and João said, “the Dendarii sprinted through a few wormhole jumps and met up with a couple of big Escobaran dreadnaughts who received all the prisoners. The Escobarans took them all back toward Tau Ceti, while the Dendarii went the other way, over toward Mahata Solaris. Either the Cetagandans didn’t notice the Escobaran warships, or they decided not to escalate the war, because they all chased the Dendarii. We were at Tau Ceti waiting for word on how the mission went, and didn’t find out that we had 10,000 new mouths to feed until a couple of days before they arrived. Zelaya’s first instinct was to try to get as many of them as possible back into the Marilac system, but she knew the Cetagandans would expect that, and would beef up the blockade. So she decided we should use the back door.”

“The back door?” Beryl asked.

“Through Cetagandan space, to Xi Ceta and then Marilac.”

“Oh, shit,” she said.

“The Cetagandans didn’t blockade their own path to Marilac, just the wormhole to Zoave Twilight and the rest of the galaxy,” João said. “Zelaya searched the shipping registries for a cargo we could use as an excuse to fly into Cetagandan space, and found a request to move half a ton of barley from Earth to Eta Ceta.”

While João took a sip of matcha, Beryl said, “Zelaya’s idea of the safest way to deliver them was to go through the capital of the Cetagandan Empire?”

“Well, they certainly didn’t expect it, he answered. “I reconfigured the Susurrus into its RM-1384 mode, because that one has the biggest outer hull. Then Tau Cetan military engineers constructed temporary habitations in all that space between the hulls. By the time the ex-prisoners arrived, they had selected 1200 from amongst themselves to return to Marilac. We only built space for 1000 of them, and even that was tight, but if they were willing to squeeze in 200 more, we weren’t going to deny them that.”

João continued, “we flew on to Earth, where we met our client, the Ghem-Lord Rem Essona. He wanted to create a special beer as an artistic pairing to some fancy meal he was going to host, and it was essential to choose the perfect Earther barley, hops, and yeast. It took him almost ten days to decide what to buy. Then someone in Central Europe convinced him that the secret to great beer was in the water, and water tastings cost us another couple days. Zelaya was almost ready to kill him. She gave up on dealing with Lord Essona, and made me do it. Meanwhile, all the veterans were trapped like sardines, hiding there between the hulls.”

“Lord Essona eventually picked his ingredients, including four tons of bottled spring water and two tons of glass bottles that weren’t in the original contract. I convinced him to buy a little extra of everything, ‘just in case,’ and I snuck some of it back into the veterans’ habitations between the hulls, where a few of them made their own brews with it.”

“Actually,” João said with a twinkle in his eye, “this is the perfect time for you to examine my trunk.”

“Are you serious?” Beryl asked. “The story is getting good.”

“Trust me,” João said.

With a dubious look on her face, Beryl got a handheld bio scanner from a locker on the side wall while João opened his trunk.

Along with some clothing and personal items, the trunk held several bottles and a small powered cooler. Beryl ran the scanner across it all. She asked João to open the cooler, and scanned the small supply of fresh fruits and vegetables inside.

“OK,” she said.

“That’s it?” João asked.

“That’s it,” Beryl said.

João pulled out two of the smaller bottles. “This is almost the last of what the Dagoola veterans brewed.” João grabbed a bottle opener.

“Don’t open those in here!” Beryl cried.

João gave her a stern look. “Give me a little credit, Beryl.” He reached into the trunk and pulled out two small objects. “Microgravity nozzles,” he said.

“Nozzles…” Beryl said, with smiling eyes.

“OK, nipples,” João said, “but they work just fine, as long as you don’t shake the bottle.” He smoothly opened one beer and slipped the nipple on it, then the other, without releasing a drop. Then he passed one to her.

“I haven’t had a beer in years…” she told him.

“You kind of have to ‘swim’ the bottle backwards,” João said, illustrating how to move the bottle in space to shift liquid into the nipple.

“Wouldn't it be easier to just transfer it into a bulb?” she asked.

“Never! Beer belongs in glass,” João said with a grin. Then he raised his bottle to her  “To war’s end, and those that didn’t make it here.” Beryl touched his bottle, and they drank.

“There’s not much to say about the trip to Eta Ceta,” João told her. “It was an anxious time, but the mass detector jammers and all the rest of the technology in the Susurrus did their job. We made our delivery and took off, in the direction of Xi Ceta and Marilac.”

João looked out at the Sussurus. “It was nice to give the veterans freedom to move through the crew compartments, once Lord Essona and his cargo were gone. A couple military jump pilots, Celia and Amy, started hanging out with me, on the bridge.”

João frowned. “And then, after one of the wormhole jumps between Xi Ceta and Marilac, we ran into a Cetagandan patrol frigate. They ordered us to stand down and prepare for a ‘random’ inspection. I have no idea if something about us tipped them off, or if it was truly a random inspection.” João took a deep breath. “There was only one way out, and it was back through the wormhole we’d just come through. But neither of the military jump pilots could do it. Their implants aren’t compatible with the Susurrus. So I gave Amy my stunner, and told her to set it to heavy stun and shoot me right in the temple as soon as we were out of the wormhole.”

Beryl was shocked. “What? Why?” she asked.

João explained, “you know how when you go through a wormhole, the jump pilot subjectively experiences several hours of time while the rest of you get those few seconds of displacement, nausea, and static in the mind?”

Quietly, Beryl said, “I’ve never been through a wormhole.”

It was João’s turn to be shocked. “Really?”

“It’s true,” she said, looking away. “I’ve never left the Marilac system.” She looked back up at him, defiantly. “But of course I understand the principle. I do repair spacecraft for a living.”

João collected his thoughts. “A wormhole jump is a lot of work for the pilot’s brain. It depletes the neurotransmitters, oxygen, glucose, et cetera. If you try to do two jumps back to back, it’s like...um...doing twelve hours of hard math. Five-dimensional math. With no food, and with minimal circulation of blood to the brain. The end of any normal jump is already exhausting enough. Starting a new one right away can be deadly. It can cause a stroke.”

“That’s why I told Amy to stun me,” João said. “To freeze my brain before any biological harm could happen. I also called down for emergency assistance, so the medics could start running up to the bridge. Celia strapped into the co-pilot’s seat. She could fly the ship just fine, she just couldn’t take it through any wormholes. I told her to fly the Susurrus into the accretion disk of the binary star system we’d just left, and to launch a torpedo that cast a projection of the Susurrus, and send it in the direction of the wormhole back to Xi Ceta.”

“And then I did the jump. The pain...” João was staring blankly, his beer forgotten in his loose hand. He shook his head to clear it. “When the jump was over, Amy shot me.” He gave a grim smile. “I woke up in our medical bed, with one hell of a headache. Zelaya was there, with a doctor and Celia. Amy was on the bridge, piloting the ship. It turned out the Cetagandan patrol ship did chase the projection, and the accretion disk was the perfect place to hide. They made me rest for three days there. And then I flew us the rest of the way into the Marilac system.”

“There’s not much more to tell,” he said. “After we delivered the veterans to the fleet, we went to Vega Station to have the habitations removed from between the hulls. And that’s where the Ghem death squad tried to kill us…”

João took a long pull from his beer, then looked out the window at the Susurrus.

Beryl said, “João…” He turned, and she kissed him on the lips. João’s eyes went wide as the kiss continued.

She released him and said, “thank you.” João made a waving off motion with his hand, but Beryl said, “has anyone really thanked you? For what you did for all of them? All of us?”

“I did what I had to,” he muttered, looking away, but she squeezed his hand hard, and he looked into her eyes.

“Thank you.”

João’s eyes were becoming a little wet. He was silent, biting his lower lip for a moment. And then he blurted: “Come with me!” He gestured to the Susurrus. “I can show you the galaxy.”

Beryl pushed away from him, and said in a hard voice, “don’t do anything for me out of pity.”

“Is that what you see in my eyes?” João asked. “Pity?”

He paused, then said in a low, shaky voice, “what I feel is respect.” He got a little louder, more confident. “When I look at you, what I see is courage. With your injuries, you could have stayed in sick bay on the Laurent, in artificial gravity. Instead you chose this path, and now you’ll never see Marilac’s polar ice floes, or Mount Solimões, or walk on the beach near Port Lisma again.”

Her face was still hard. “Figured that out, did you? Yeah, at this point my legs are the least of my medical problems. I never thought the words ‘bone density’ or ‘muscle atrophy’ would mean so much to me.”

“Come with me. I’ll keep the artificial gravity off for you,” João pled.

“And have you end up like me?” she asked.

“OK, I’ll set up one room with gravity as an exercise room, and keep myself in shape there, João said. “The rest of the ship can be in microgravity.”

Beryl’s face softened, and she took his hand in hers. “Why do you always call it ‘microgravity?’ Everyone else calls it zero-G.”

João took the hint that it was time to change the subject. “I spent years studying five-dimensional math. There’s a huge distinction between zero gravity and microgravity in five dimensions.”

They stayed on safe, impersonal subjects for a while. João discovered that he was very hungry, so they ate a meal while they finished their beers.

Along the way, Beryl made a joke about her colored hair, and João asked about it. “Am I crazy or do you glow in the dark?”

Beryl turned down the lights and batted her emerald lashes. It wasn’t very bright, but her hair was definitely glowing. “Every hair is a clear fiber optic,” she said. “There are bioluminescent cells in my follicles that create the colors.”

“It’s beautiful. Do the hairs grow?” he asked.

Beryl turned the lights back up. “Yeah, it’s my natural hair, except that now it’s clear.”

João stroked her hair. “How did they do it, with retrogenes?”

“That’s right.” She smiled wistfully. “It cost me three months pay from my first real job. My mother was so mad, especially because all my old hair fell out.”

João took her hand in his. “Where did you go to get it done?”

Beryl said, “do you remember those bioengineering commercials when we were teenagers, ‘Secrets of the Haut?’”

João laughed. “Yeah, they were pretty over-the-top. The little wings they gave that girl were kind of lame, but the guy with the tail looked like he was having a lot of fun with it.”

Beryl’s features darkened. “After Cetaganda invaded, there was a rumor that ‘Secrets of the Haut’ was connected with the invasion. I hope I didn’t contribute to that.”

“Because of their name?” João asked, and Beryl nodded. He said, “I doubt it. The haut may be the upper caste of Cetagandans, but it’s not really their style to use their name in something like this. I’ve seen a few of them now, in Zelaya’s treaty negotiations. Heard them speak. I can’t imagine them setting up a business like that.”

Beryl said, “after the war started, ‘Secrets of the Haut’ claimed they were actually a subsidiary of House Cordonah from Jackson’s Whole.”

“That sounds more like it,” João responded. “I’m sure they had no connection to any actual haut. Jacksonians lie with no remorse.”

They were silent for a moment, and then Beryl’s face brightened. “If you remember the ‘Secrets of the Haut’ commercials, you’re going to like this.” She took their empty food containers to the recycler, and opened a freezer next to the culinary unit. “Do you remember the ad for those doce do leite ice cream bars?”

“Yeah!,” João responded, and they sang the musical jingle from the commercial together as she brought two of them over. “I haven’t had one of these since I was a kid,” João said.

Beryl looked at her blue-purple hand, and a tiny blade popped out of the index finger, where a fingernail would be. She sliced open the ice cream bars’ packaging, and the tiny blade disappeared back into her finger. “I told you I have a sweet tooth. It’s nice to be able to get stuff like this from the planet again.”

Beryl handed one of the bars toward João, but he didn’t move. He had gone rigid, his eyes wide, pupils huge, his mouth a rictus. Beryl let go of the ice cream bars and said, “what is it?” as she reached out to him, but he shrank away from her, hyperventilating.

“Zelaya…” João took two quick breaths. “Zelaya...did something...bad...to someone...with her fingernails.”

Beryl pressed the button near her elbow, and gently tossed the blue-purple arm, sending it tumbling slowly to the far wall. Then she turned back to João and embraced him. He buried his head in her chest.

“Hush,” she said, and she stroked his cheek with her stump, with her good arm behind him, holding him close. “Hush.”

“You’re not the only one on this ship who has flashbacks,” she said gently. João’s breathing became a little more regular. “You’re OK. You’re on the Rachne with me. This is real.”

They were silent for a few minutes, not moving except for Beryl stroking João’s bald head with her stump.

João stirred, and looked at Beryl’s face. “I’m sorry,” he said.

Beryl kissed his forehead and said, “don’t apologize to me, João. You have nothing to be sorry about.”

João pushed lightly on her shoulder to create a little space, so he could look at her face to face, but when Beryl offered her hand, he held it.

Then he saw their desserts floating a few feet away. “Oh no!” he cried. Drops of melted ice cream had escaped, forming blobs that stuck to the packaging with surface tension.

“Yeah,” she said, smiling. “It's OK.” Her face became concerned. “Will you be alright if I go put my arm on?”

“I think so,” he said.

As she pushed off the near wall, Beryl said, “it’s pretty hard to get by with just one working limb.”

João said, “I’m sorry, Beryl.”

“Don’t apologize,” Beryl said. “We all have to take care of each other. All of us who...made it through. And...” she paused, looking him in the eyes, “you’re going to have to sleep here again tonight. I don’t want to feel like I have to apologize to you if I wake up seeing the flash of a nerve disruptor and the flare of a plasma arc. Or…,” Beryl looked away, out the window, and said in a choked voice “...the wreckage of the Laurent.”

“Oh Beryl, I didn’t know.”

“Yeah, it was a shitty war,” she said. “But it’s over, and right now we have a mess to clean up.”

Beryl pulled a small bag and a roll of high absorbency towels out of a cabinet, and returned to where he was, near the window. But she left the bag and towels floating nearby as she turned toward the nearest ice cream bar and approached it, mouth-first.

João laughed as she began cleaning the packaging with her lips and tongue, holding the dry parts gingerly with fingertips. She turned to him, with mock irritation. “What are you laughing at, Mister João? I’ve been in microgravity a long time, and I know the best way to clean a mess like this.” She gestured over to the other ice cream bar. “You’d better get started on yours.”

“Yes, ma’am.” João found that the trickiest part, once he had licked the outside clean, was removing the ice cream bar from the packaging without causing little droplets to spin out. But within a couple of minutes the packaging from both bars was in the small bag, and they were each eating the still-frozen center of their ice cream bar in the normal way.

Beryl looked out the window, at the freighter, and said, “I think I would like to see the galaxy. João, I would like to come with you, on the Susurrus.”

João looked away from her and said, “don’t do anything for _me_ out of pity.”

“Is that what you see in _my_ eyes?” she asked gently.

J“No,” he said, ashamed. “But you ran into danger. I tried to run away.”

“I don’t blame you! I wouldn’t have wanted to stay with Zelaya either.” Beryl took the bag of garbage and the stick from her ice cream over to the recycler. Without looking at him, she said, “there are other ways to try to escape. I...pretty much stopped eating for a while. Admiral Dumont himself noticed during a call about a critical repair. My hair had gone white because the bioluminescent cells in my scalp stopped working from malnutrition. It was pretty embarrassing, especially when Admiral Dumont dressed down the quartermaster and head fleet engineer for not noticing how thin I had gotten, for not taking adequate care of 'fleet resources.’”

João was beside her now, putting the stick from his ice cream into the recycler and then taking her hand. Beryl smiled at him and continued. “The fleet surgeon assigned a medtech named Morgan to be my babysitter, to make sure I was eating. It was easy to blame my terrible culinary unit, but I didn't have much appetite for the good food he brought me from the fleet either.”

“So Morgan began bringing his husband Daniel and their daughter Penelope here for some dinners.” Beryl’s eyes brightened. “Penelope was so tiny. She had been in a uterine replicator when the war started. She loved floating in zero G. She couldn’t stop laughing when her dads tossed her between them. And I loved holding her…” Beryl squeezed João’s hand. “But mostly, it helped to have someone to talk to. I started taking better care of myself after that.”

She looked him in the eyes. “Have you had anyone you could talk to about your experiences? I’m not counting Zelaya.”

João barked a single, bitter laugh. “No, definitely not Zelaya.” He rubbed his eyes with his fingertips, then the heels of his hands. “There’s no one else. I’ve never told any of this to anyone. I’m not allowed to.”

He opened his eyes and looked at her. “I think I may have gotten you in trouble, Beryl, telling you all of this. I’m going to have to let Zelaya know that I did. That’s a lot better than her finding out any other way.”

Beryl’s calm face didn’t waver. “I’ll take my chances. I know a lot of very secret stuff too. Like the best way to disable a Marilacan dreadnaught from a distance. And you’re not the only one with friends in high places.”

João rubbed his eyes again. A notification sounded on Beryl’s console, and she went to check it. “The drones are done. Good timing. You look exhausted. We can get ready for bed while the Susurrus reconfigures.”

João went to his console. “Can you send the drones into the crew compartment?”

“They’re already there.”

“Thank you.” João operated his console, and the outer hull of the Susurrus began to come apart.

Beryl turned the lights down in the Rachne, and they watched out the window for a while. João reached over and stroked her kinky, glowing emerald hair.

Beryl smiled at him. “That offer for me to come with you on the Susurrus—are you looking for crew, or companionship?”

João stroked her cheek. “Both,” he said. “A partner.”

Beryl kissed João lightly on the lips. “I’ll take the first shower,” she said playfully. Then she unzipped the top of her coveralls. At his open-mouthed reaction to her bared breasts, Beryl jibed, “what, you’ve never seen a girl take off her clothes before?”

“You’re so beautiful, but I really am tired,” João said apologetically. “Maybe…” Beryl continued unzipping, “...Beryl, you’re green!”

“Every hair on my body.” Beryl laughed. “I had my arms permanently depilated because it looked pretty silly. And I know you’re tired, honey. I’m not planning anything tonight but a shower.”

Beryl began pushing the coveralls off her unresponsive legs, which were bone-thin and wrapped with a tight black fabric. “Powered compression stockings,” Beryl explained. “They push blood in and out of my legs, keep the circulation going. I wear them right into the sonic shower. I change them once a week.”

With one more squeeze of his hand, she left him at the window. After what felt like no time, she was out, her hair smelling strongly of apples. João was self-conscious as he undressed, but the look on Beryl’s face was warm and welcoming. João used the tiny sonic shower, and when he exited Beryl was waiting, still naked, with a bulb of hot cocoa for each of them.

“I can improve this,” he said, and retrieved a bottle from his trunk. “Vervani brandy,” he said. “About the only thing we got out of that trip to Vervain.” Then he looked again at the bulb of cocoa. “I’m not sure how to…”

“Give me that,” Beryl said. When he did, she removed the brandy cork and popped open the top of the bulb, then moved them gently mouth-to-mouth through the air, smoothly transferring some of the brandy into the bulb without losing a drop of either liquid or letting chocolate get into the brandy bottle. Then she did the same with the other bulb.

“Wow,” João said. “That’s really hard.” Beryl nodded, smiling, and drank some spiked cocoa. “And this isn’t the best time to release a hot liquid,” he said, gesturing at their nude bodies. Beryl laughed.

Beryl opened a drawer next to the shower and pulled out a strip of paper with colored dots stuck to it. “We need to choose my hair color for tomorrow. What color would you like?”

João looked at the options. “Yellow,” he said. Beryl smiled, and gingerly bit a yellow dot off the paper.

João’s console issued a notification, and he moved over to check it. “Reconfiguration’s done. You can start the drones again.” She did, and they took a few minutes to quietly finish their drinks.

“Come to bed,” Beryl said.

As they got into her sleepsack together, João kissed the back of her neck and said, “you’re beautiful, Beryl. I’m sorry that I’m too tired for anything…”

“Shut up and hold me,” she responded.

He wrapped his arms around her, pushed his face into her curls, and lost himself in the emerald glow and the scent of apples.

He awoke to a golden dawn, and found it was the glow of Beryl’s hair. Beryl woke when he stirred, and kissed his cheek. They stayed there for a few minutes, holding each other, and then they left the sleepsack.

“The drones need two more hours,” she told him after checking her console.  By unspoken agreement, they remained undressed as they ate breakfast and drank matcha.

Beryl looked out the window at the Susurrus. “I love the idea of having some more space to live in. I've been in this one room for so long. But it’s going to be hard to leave the Rachne behind.”

“Why would we do that?” João asked. “We can attach it to the aft airlock, in place of the escape pod.” Hope crossed Beryl's face, followed immediately by darkness. “I think the docking mount might need some modifications, but you can do that.”

“No, it's not that,” she said. “I still owe a lot of money on the loan I used to buy the Rachne. The only way I can come with you is if I sell her.”

“How much do you owe?” Beryl told him the amount, and João laughed. “That's less than what we were paid for shipping the barley on the original contract with Lord Essona, before we gouged him on the water and the bottles.”

“Zelaya let you keep the money?” she asked.

“It went into a shell account, and she signed the account over to me after the war,” João said.

Beryl frowned. “Isn’t that a violation of the anti-corruption laws? That’s public property.”

“Not as big a violation as giving me the Susurrus.” They both looked out the window. “It all made me a little uncomfortable too, but Zelaya said ‘you earned it.’ Zelaya has a very hard time with saying ‘thank you’ and ‘I’m sorry.’ So this is how she does that, by doing people favors. Anyway, I’ll happily pay off your loan.”

Beryl looked away. “I can't let you do that.”

“Think of it as contributing equity into our business partnership,” he said.

Beryl smiled at him. “I'm not sure that helps.”

“Let's put it this way,” João said. “I'd rather fly with the Rachne, and have a little less money in a bank account, than the alternative. She's a valuable asset, but she's a lot more valuable with an experienced operator. It would be wrong to separate you two ”

Beryl kissed his cheek. “You're sweet.” Her face became serious again. “But there's another thing. I…” Beryl looked out at the Susurrus. “... last night, I wanted to get naked with you because…”

João reached out an arm to embrace her shoulders, but she shrugged him off. “Sorry, João, I…” Beryl rotated to face him, and grasped both his hands in hers. “If what you want is companionship, this body is all you are ever going to get.” Beryl gestured at her thin legs. “I’m not going to agree to any more medical treatments. Not major ones anyway.”

Looking down at their hands, she said, “the problem is that the ‘solutions’ for my medical problems are all contradictory. I would need to put in at least two or three years of hard exercise in a steadily increasing gravity field to get my muscles and bone density back to where I could tolerate one G. I couldn’t keep working, I’d have to do that full time. And even then, I’d be limited, physically, in what I could do. But it’s not possible anyway, not with one and a half arms. Exercise a prosthesis does wouldn’t count, it has to be real muscles moving.”

“They can’t ever revive my legs,” Beryl continued, her voice becoming choked with frustration. “They’re too far gone. There’s just no muscle to re-innervate. And they’ve never tried limb regrowth in microgravity, and I’m not willing for them to experiment on my hand. One doctor wanted to just take my legs off, amputate, and give me more prosthetics, but he couldn’t explain what good they would do me in microgravity.”

Beryl was squeezing his hands hard now, her voice angry, tears welling in her still downcast eyes. “The worst part was where the doctor said that every minute I spent in zero G would undo five minutes of exercise in gravity. That’s probably a lifelong restriction. So my reward for dedicating years to just exercising would be a life as a cripple in full gravity, and never floating again.”

Beryl looked up defiantly through her tears at João. “No. I’m going to stay as I am. I’ll keep taking their supplements and doing some light exercise, but that’s it.”

Softly, João said, “I’ll take you as you are.”

“And that means…” Beryl’s breathing was ragged now as she fought for control. “...that means no sex. The...nerve disruptor…”

“I’ll take you as you are,” João said, and he embraced her. Beryl gripped him tightly, painfully squeezing his ribs as she let go into sobs. João stroked her golden hair, her bare back.

Beryl took a deep breath and whispered, “I’m sorry.”

“Don’t break the no apologies rule,” João told her, and she coughed out something between a laugh, a sob, and a hiccup. She winced and hunched her shoulders from the pain. But she was starting to gain more control over her breathing.

Beryl lifted her head and tried to wipe the tears from her eyes, but her impermeable blue-purple arm was worthless for that, and her real arm was not much better. João left her to go find the cabinet with the absorbent towels.

“I should know better,” she called out to him. “Don’t ever cry naked in microgravity.” He brought her the roll of towels, and she cleaned up.

“It’s just so frustrating,” she said, tears welling up again. “The doctors talk to me like I’m crazy, or...a child. Like I don’t understand what my choices mean.” Beryl wiped her eyes again, balled up the towel, and squeezed it tight in her hands. “Even my mom won’t talk to me now, because I’m refusing further treatment.”

“Wow,” he said.

“Yeah, she takes it personally,” Beryl said. “Like I decided never to come back down to Marilac because of her. But there’s more going on there. She was a collaborator.”

João looked stricken. “Oh, how could she?”

Beryl sighed. “I don’t hold that against her. Things have been really hard for her since my dad moved out. Her life is controlled by fear. So when the Cetagandans became the new authority, it was predictable that she would work with them. I’m sure all our neighbors knew she would do that, and they were careful around her. After the war, she gave a full accounting to the Reconciliation Commission, so there won't be any consequences for her. But she’s so crushed with guilt, she finds it hard to even look at me now.” Beryl released the wadded-up towel and watched it expand slowly in front of her. “And I haven’t made much effort. I’m not sure how much I’m supposed to care...”

“It was a shitty war,” João said, taking her hand.

“It really was.” Beryl squeezed his hand, and forced a smile. Then she let go so she could rip off another towel and blow her nose. “Let’s get dressed. If nothing else that’ll give me sleeves to wipe on if I lose it again.”

Before she could move to the drawer that held her coveralls, João embraced her. “Wherever I go, I want you there,” he said.

“OK,” she said, and she gave him a light kiss on the lips.

They got dressed and moved to their respective consoles. After about half an hour, Beryl turned to João. “I don’t want you paying off my loan. I want to earn that money myself.” She gave him a wry smile. “Call it stubbornness.” Beryl looked back at her screen. “But it is a violation of my agreement to take the Rachne out of the solar system. I think I can negotiate a change, but...would you be willing to countersign with me?”

“Of course. I’ll do anything you need,” he said.

“OK.” She took a deep breath. “We’re really doing this, aren’t we?” João nodded, and Beryl named a figure, about half of what she still owed on the Rachne.

“What?” he asked.

“That’s how much you’ll pay me, per year,” she clarified.

João laughed. “That’s less than we’d earn for a two week run. No, we’re partners.”

“OK, um… seven percent,” she said.

“What?” he asked again.

Beryl said, “you’re supplying the Susurrus, a fat bank account, and the jump pilot. I bring...um, I’ve paid off a third of the Rachne. And…” she looked down at her legs “...half a crewmember.”

João floated over and held her shoulders. “No, Beryl. We’re _partners_. And you’re a damned valuable crewmember. You’re an experienced repair tech. Not only can you operate all the equipment on the ship, you can fix it all.”

“It’s not fair to you,” she said, still looking down at her legs.

João put his finger under her chin, and she looked him in the eyes. “Partners,” he said.

Beryl took a deep breath. “Partners,” she whispered.

João looked down at his outstretched hand. Beryl followed his gaze, hesitated, and then shook his hand.

“Good, because I think I found our first cargo,” he said. “But we’ll have to leave soon to pick it up on Beta Colony. How soon can you modify that docking mount so we can attach the Rachne?”

“That’s a fast job,” she said. “Getting the terms of my loan changed will probably take longer.”

“I’ll ask Zelaya for help finding a business agent to take care of that for us, and to sell the escape pod,” João said. “I don’t want to stay here any longer than we have to, after we nuke the Susurrus.”

Beryl smiled. “There’s still that, isn’t there.”

A few minutes later, when the drones finished, they released a device from the Rachne. Then they flew four million kilometers away, and turned the back of the Rachne to the Susurrus for additional radiation shielding.

Beryl called the main Marilac orbital station and requested permission to set off the device.

“Please provide your telemetry,” she was instructed. Beryl shared the data. “You may issue warnings on the emergency channel once a minute for the next fifteen minutes, and then set off the device.”

Fifteen minutes later, after she broadcast the last warning, Beryl said to João, “do you want to push the button?”

“No, you do it,” he said. “But you’d better make sure that thing works right. The Susurrus is your ship now, too.”

With a smile, Beryl began broadcasting a countdown, and they watched the Susurrus on the console. At “zero,” Beryl pressed the button. There was a bright flash of light, and the device was gone. Beryl pulled up the radar display. “There’s the bomb housing, moving away from the Susurrus at a tenth the speed of light.” She pulled up some more data. “The drones report the gamma blast was up to specified levels, and no persistent radiation. If anything survived depressurization and the drones, it's dead now. We can head back anytime.”

“Then let me invite you into your new home,” João said, and he kissed his partner.

* * *

Several days later, Beryl was installing handles in one of the corridors on the Susurrus when João called her up to the bridge.

“A video message from Zelaya caught up to us. The cover text says we should watch it together. It’s a little long, so I…,” João gestured at two bulbs of matcha and a container of vanilla wafers.

“Thank you,” she said, and kissed his cheek. João stroked her orangy-pink hair.

They got comfortable in front of the Susurrus’s big video display screen, and João started the message. 

_Hello João. I’m sorry that you couldn’t reach me before you left. I’ve shared some thoughts with my new chief of staff about being overly aggressive in filtering my communications. You’re on my “short list” now, the friends and family list, so it won’t happen again._

_You picked a hell of a way to finally get my attention, having that Ghem corpse delivered to me. I’ve always said you have style, João._

_Turning to your requests, I’ve deposited fair market value for your escape pod into your account. I was thinking of putting our Ghem friend in it, pointing it in the direction of Eta Ceta, and boosting it up to half the speed of light. That would give them an odd surprise in about 3,800 years. But as First Minister now, I’m officially Marilac’s chief diplomat, so I suppose I’ll have to return the body through ordinary diplomatic channels. The First Minister is also commander-in-chief, and the Navy gets so sensitive about how you handle military bodies, ours and theirs._

_Your other request, to renegotiate the loan on the repair scow Rachne, poses some greater challenges..._

“Wait, pause it,” Beryl said. João did, and she asked, “did you ask the First Minister of Marilac to renegotiate my loan?”

“No,” João said through a sigh, “I did what we said, I asked her to recommend a business agent. But I know that look on her face. She’s playing some game with me, her idea of humor. She likes surprises. We should probably watch the whole message before we assume anything about it.”

“OK,” Beryl said, concern obvious on her face.

João rolled it back a few seconds, and started it up again.

_Your other request, to renegotiate the loan on the repair scow Rachne, poses some greater challenges. Thank you for being upfront with me about disclosing confidential information to your companion, Beryl. I did some looking into her background because, well, that’s my job._

As Zelaya said the words “that’s my job,” Beryl saw that João mouthed them in unison with her.

_Hmmm, that line worked better when I was head of the intelligence service. I may have to retire “that’s my job.” I still have oversight over intelligence, but the position of First Minister is so complex, I don’t think the joke works anymore._

_In any case, I’m afraid you two have made a fleet admiral extremely angry. I asked Admiral Dumont about Beryl, and naturally I disclosed to him why I was asking. I’ve never seen a man’s face go so red with anger as when he yelled: “She doesn’t own the Rachne outright? And we’ve never paid her?” You really should be more careful. It’s usually quite dangerous to antagonize someone who commands as much firepower as the good admiral._

_And you’ve created another headache for me. Dumont has requested that my office conduct an investigation to locate any other civilians who aided the war effort but have not been thanked or compensated appropriately. The First Minister’s work is never done._

_Specifically as to the loan on the Rachne, I’m sorry to say that I can’t help you because there is no loan anymore. Admiral Dumont paid it, I believe out of his own pocket. We are working out what fair compensation would be for Beryl’s repair services over the entire span of the war, and you can expect payment by year’s end._

_Beryl, Admiral Dumont said he would send you a personal message in the near future, but he told me that about a thousand military personnel and family members owe their lives and liberty to you for just one job. He said your repair of the engine cowling of the cruiser Tarpon was the fastest, most precise freehand work he has ever seen. And if the Tarpon had been delayed in aiding the partially disabled Fogo De Deus even a few more minutes, we would have lost a dreadnaught and two troop transports._

João reached one arm around Beryl’s shoulder in a tight embrace, and helped her wipe her tears with his other sleeve.

_But João, that does still leave us with the matter of your disclosure of confidential information to Beryl. I’ve thought about that, and I don’t think it’s a problem. I gave you the promotion to the rank of Intelligence Officer IV just before your retirement from the intelligence service a few weeks ago._

_One of the powers of the Officer IV rank is recruiting other officers, so I’m going to administratively treat this as though João recruited Beryl into the intelligence service, at the Officer I rank. Beryl, I assume you will want to retire immediately. “Retire” is a bit of a misleading term, as João can explain. It’s more like going inactive. If we ever need you, we know where to find you. That’s our job. But you do get a pension, at one third pay, starting immediately._

_I think that covers all of the business. Please do take care of yourselves. I mean it when I say you should avoid angering Admiral Dumont further, and if anything were to happen to Beryl, I believe he would be very upset. And João, when you died, I… well, don’t do it again._

_Good luck, and please find your happiness. Marilac does not deserve your commitment and your sacrifices._

The message ended, and they looked at each other for a moment.

Beryl said, “you died.”

“Only technically, after the double wormhole jump” João replied. “The medics got there quickly and started my heart again right away. I think you came a lot closer to being ‘dead dead’ on the first day of the war.”

Beryl took a deep breath, then exhaled slowly. “She’s so manipulative.”

“That’s Zelaya.”

“Am I still allowed to dislike her, after everything she just did for us?” she asked. “How much is this pension?” João described each of their pensions, and Beryl whistled. “There are places in the galaxy where we could live pretty well on just that, if we wanted.”

“It’s a very nice leash,” João said. “The number one rule is that it has to be delivered to wherever you really are. You have to keep your location up to date with them. They can call you back into active service whenever they want. And there’s no option to ‘really’ retire.”

Beryl’s hand found his. “As long as I’m with you…” Her eyes flashed. “Does this mean that you can tell me anything you want, now?” she asked.

“It does.”

“You said the Susurrus came into Marilac space twice during the war. What did you bring us that second time?” she asked.

João smiled at her. “A Betan dreadnaught, and the end of the war.”

Beryl’s eyes went big. “Oh, I want to hear _that_ story.”

João laughed. “It’s a pretty boring story, and I think you may already know most of it. The Betan Astronomical Survey had mapped out a wormhole route that would put them between Marilac and Xi Ceta. But it was over 80 jumps. The Betans pulled their ships off the counter-blockade and everyone wondered where they went. Well, they were pushing hard, alongside the Sussurus. It still took us more than two months. It was pretty monotonous. At least they got smart and gave me a copilot, Sujil, whose jump implants matched the Susurrus, and he did half the jumps for me.”

João continued, “when we got near Cetagandan space, we started using the Susurrus for what it was originally designed to do. We would jump the Susurrus through a wormhole and scout it out. The idea was that a freighter would draw a lot less attention than a warship. If we didn’t jump back, they knew it was safe to proceed. Luckily, we never had to jump back. It was clear all the way through to Marilac. I bet you didn’t notice the Baotou freighter that jumped in before that Betan dreadnaught came through.”

“No,” she said, smiling.

“And then the Betans dispersed the Cetagandans on the Marilac side of the blockaded wormhole,” João said. “They took the battle to the other side, and when that was clear, the Betans, Barrayarans, Tau Cetans, and Escobarans all poured through the wormhole and pushed past Marilac toward Xi Ceta, until the Cetagandans waved the white flag. Then the recovery started.”

“And now I’ve told you pretty much everything,” João said, “though from what Zelaya said, it sounds like you did a little more than I’ve heard so far.”

Beryl looked down at the matcha bulb in her hands. “I repaired some ships. Sometimes I had to do it quickly.”

João waited silently until she looked up again. He said, “I have a surprise for you.”

“What is it?”

“Come on.” He led her down a corridor to a large cargo compartment in the middle of the ship. João had painted the word “UP” on the door, with a large arrow that pointed toward what had been the floor before they turned off the artificial gravity.

“Remember when we took our last look at Marilac, and I asked if there was anything you’d miss, and you said ‘the water?’ Well, I can’t give you a beach, but…” João opened the door. The compartment was filled halfway with water. “It’s at fifteen percent of one G. I can lower it if you think we need to.” The gravity had been flipped, so the door they were looking through was at the ceiling. João had installed handles below the door that could be used as a ladder.

Beryl was smiling, her eyes bright. “I think I can handle swimming in fifteen percent gravity.”

“Then take your clothes off, and be really careful getting in, through the gravity change.”

Floating and swimming in the water felt almost normal, but, “João, the waves are huge!” He responded by splashing her, the water arcing to hit her from clear across the compartment. João had put a few buoyant containers in the pool, and Beryl found herself quickly winded, and reaching for one of the floats so she could rest.

João said, “it’s good exercise, isn’t it?”

Beryl shot him a mock dirty look. “Is this some kind of conspiracy with the doctors, Mister João?”

“Just something to make you happy.”

Beryl swam to him. “It does.” She began giving him a long, passionate kiss, but stopped and frowned at her blue-purple arm.

“What’s wrong?” João asked.

“Water is getting in, under the cuff. The arm isn’t going to short out or anything, the mechanism is sealed. But it’s not very comfortable.” She pressed the button on her elbow and slipped it off. But when she let go, the arm sank to the bottom. “Aaah!” she shrieked. “I thought it would float!”

João dove down to retrieve it. Then he kicked off the bottom and swam hard for the surface, kicking like a dolphin.

João flew entirely out of the water, toward the doorway, and grabbed the uppermost handle. He placed the artificial arm out in the hallway, and then jumped backwards off a handle and did a “cannonball” back into the pool. The splash was enormous, water rising to the ceiling and dripping down on them.

Beryl was laughing, clapping her hand and stump. “You’ve been practicing,” she said.

“Yeah, the last few days when I said I was going to the one G exercise room, I was coming here to set this up,” he admitted. “And then I had to try it.”

They met again in the middle of the pool, and embraced.

“I love you, João.”

“I love you, Beryl.”

* * *

“João?”

Beryl’s voice brought João out of a meditation in their darkened cabin. He took a sip of his bedtime cocoa and turned to look at her face, lit by the orangy-pink glow of her hair.

“Why are we going to Beta Colony?”

“That’s where our cargo is,” he answered.

“But why that cargo?” she asked. “Why Beta?”

“I…” he hesitated. “I want to ask for some help.”

Beryl stared at him, waiting for him to continue. Finally, João said, “...from the Orb”

Her face went impassive. “The Orb...”

“...The Orb of Unearthly Delights.”

“I know what the damned Orb is,” she snapped. “I’m not a child. But we can't go there, it's down on the planet. Or…” Beryl's face went flat again. “No, it makes a lot of sense, if you want to go there and get what you need. What I can't..."

“No!” João’s vehemence caught them both off guard. João closed his eyes and took a breath. “I just want to talk to one of the licensed practical sexuality therapists about us. I’ve been to the Orb. It’s not what you think it is.”

“And what do you think my view of the Orb is?” Beryl’s tone was sharp.

João rubbed his eyes with his fingertips, then the heels of his hands. “You’re right, I have no idea what you think of the Orb. But I do know when I’m out of my depth.”

João opened his eyes and looked at her. “I’d like some advice from an expert. I’ve fallen in love with a woman with serious injuries who thinks she can never have sex. I’m having trouble accepting that. I think it’s possible there could be a way to make her feel good, physically, but I don’t know how. Maybe they can show me. And if it’s hopeless, that would be easier for me to accept if they say so, because they have seen _everything_ over there.”

Beryl was looking away from him, silent. João finished the last of his cocoa in one gulp, and said, “the therapist I saw, the hermaphrodite Tiryan, was so _kind_. So understanding. I just want to talk to it again.” Betan hermaphrodites preferred the pronoun, “it” to refer to themselves.

“I’m not going to stop you from talking to anyone.” Beryl looked up. “Go ahead and contact the herm. I’ll be interested to hear what it says. But I don’t think there’s much hope, and I’m not going to let anyone pressure me into more treatments.”

“I know,” he said, and they left it at that for the night.

* * *

“Beryl, Tiryan got back to me,” João said through an intercom. “I'd like you to watch the message.”

“All right.” Beryl responded, and she made her way to the bridge.

The frozen face on the screen was pleasantly round, with bright, smiling eyes, accentuated by light makeup and a very stylish short haircut. “Go ahead,” Beryl said.

_Hi João.  Of course I remember you. _

The herm’s voice was an enthusiastic and caring alto.

_I’ve never seen such haunted eyes in anyone before. I hope I helped lift your burdens, if only for a few hours on one afternoon. I’ve thought about you a lot, every time news came in about the Marilac War. I’m so glad to see that you survived._

_And it sounds like you’ve found love. Congratulations to you and Beryl!_

_In terms of the help you’re asking for, we have a standard protocol for a sexual dysfunction counseling. We do sexual histories and physical and psychological evaluations of each partner separately, and then we bring you together with a licensed practical sexuality therapist and take it from there._

_In terms of the logistical problems you presented, I don’t have any specific experience with the challenges you two are facing, but I can tell you that the Orb welcomes everyone, and that means we have a very strong policy of accommodating every disability. I’ve passed your question up the chain and they always respond fairly quickly. I think you can expect an answer before you reach the Beta system._

_João, I would love to catch up with you, personally, once you’re here. There was so much you couldn’t say when you were here last, that maybe you can share now. But unless you come down to Beta Colony, it will have to be by vidlink. I haven’t gotten over my...issue that I shared with you._

_Someone from the Orb will be in touch soon with more details about what we can do for you. I’m confident we won’t turn you away. I assume that means someone will come up to you in orbit. It won’t be me, but I want to hear how it goes._

_May you enjoy the blessings of peace._

When the message ended, João said, “It’s afraid of space travel.”

“Really?”

“Yeah, there was a shuttleport accident in the news when Tiryan was a small child. Killed a member of the Astronomical Survey. Can you imagine that? Jumping through wormholes blind, and then killed at home in an accident?” João looked up at Tiryan’s face on the vidscreen. “We spent most of our time together just talking. I described what it’s like to go through a wormhole as a jump pilot. I was so alone then...”

Beryl took his hand. João forced a smile, and said, “what do you think? Would it be OK to bring a therapist up here?”

“Sure, if it’s important to you João.”

* * *

It is difficult to bustle in microgravity, but the white-haired woman who came aboard somehow managed it. “Bring up my bags, João. Please.”

“Yes, Mama Katie.”

Mama Katie followed Beryl, her hair lilac, to the captain’s cabin. João followed with two large bags.

When they were settled, Mama Katie began, “let me tell you a little about myself, and why the Orb sent me to you. Many years ago, I created a new adventure in the Orb, where people could experience sex in zero or very low gravity. We called it the ‘Zero G Spot,’ and it was extremely popular. Things go in fads and phases at the Orb, especially among our Betan clientele, and for a while, everyone had to try it. It is still there today, about a quarter the size it used to be.”

“My ‘reward’ for creating something so popular was that they promoted me to management. I eventually became one of the Orb’s eleven Directors. I also helped raise five children, and now I have twelve grandchildren and fourteen great-grandchildren. That’s why they call me Mama Katie.”

The woman paused, then said, “you’re definitely not Betan. That’s usually the part that impresses people the most. Anyway, I have a bit of a reputation at the Orb. The position of Chief Executive rotates among the Directors. It’s a shit job, and one of the qualifications for being a Director is you have to hate being the Chief. My first time as Chief, I ran an initiative to refocus on ‘coupling.’ I cited some statistics, like over eighty percent of the sex in the galaxy at the time was two adults alone, naked in a room with a bed, and that older adults especially tend to form romantic attachments of two or three. It was not the most popular initiative with the staff or with our core clientele, although you’d be surprised how many people on Beta Colony thanked us for it. I’ve been Chief a few more times, but I will never not be the ‘coupling’ lady.”

“All of that ancient history made me the obvious choice to come up here with you. Also, I used my ‘mean old administrator’ voice when I said I wanted this one, and nobody was willing to argue with me, so here I am.” Mama Katie smiled at them. João and Beryl did not smile back.

“Tough crowd,” she muttered. Then more loudly, “of course, I already knew that, since I conducted both of your psychological examinations and sexual histories. You are both distrustful of this process, which is justified given your recent history. Beryl, you’ve been subjected to a series of doctors who have treated you like a problem to be solved, not a human being with needs and agency. And João, you’ve spent the last few years dominated by Zelaya Trouba, and the less we say about that today, the better. I would not be any more accepting of authority if I was in your places.”

“To win your trust, I will be blunt and open with you. Luckily, that comes easily to me, as you have already experienced. I also tend to move quickly, but when you get to my age, you start to feel the passing of time a little more keenly. I have no doubt you will keep up.”

“In addition to my interviews with you, I also have the results of Dr. Keely’s physical examinations, and the report Tiryan made when you were previously here, João.” Mama Katie smiled at João. “I love Tiryan. What a generous soul. And what a clear and concise report. We could use fifty more therapists like it.”

“João rates high on the conscientiousness end of the spectrum,” Mama Katie said. “He is naturally an attentive and caring lover. But people at that end of the spectrum can sometimes be perceived as tentative, even timid. And at times, their natural caution can be read as disinterest.”

“Beryl, João is attracted to you. But he is deathly afraid of hurting you. He also believes it would be cruel to get you aroused if there can be no follow-through. For that reason, he has limited himself to kissing and hugging you.”

“Beryl is a more naturally adventurous lover, but after a few unsatisfying experiments with masturbation following her injury, she is convinced that she can never enjoy sex again.” Mama Katie focused her attention on Beryl. “When I tried to determine why you have closed yourself off to the possibility, you said something that I’m afraid will stay with me the rest of my life, my girl. ‘Sometimes, hope hurts.’”

Mama Katie took a deep breath. “My psychological evaluation is that you two are healthier than you have any right to be, given your experiences. Beryl, you have been in solitary confinement, with minimal human contact for years. Thank goodness for Morgan, Daniel and, what was the little girl’s name?”

Beryl said, “Penelope.”

“Penelope,” Mama Katie repeated. “And João...well, I said it would be counterproductive to talk too much about what you’ve been through. My conclusion is that you are both naturally strong and well grounded people who have been through events that would shake anyone. I believe psychological therapy could help you with post-traumatic issues, but you are already dealing with those in a reasonably productive way. I deem you healthy enough for sex.”

“What you do not have, primarily, is any physical impediments to sex,” Mama Katie said. “Beryl, we have helped people far more injured than you have orgasms, and otherwise have satisfying sex. I know you won’t truly believe it until we prove it to you, and that will come a little later today. For right now, I need to take you through the results of Dr. Keely’s physical examinations.”

Mama Katie said, “João, you're in excellent physical health. Congratulations. Beryl, the doctor was impressed with the original surgical work, immediately after the nerve disruptor. Your organs were re-innervated beautifully. He said he’d like to meet the doctor who did it.”

Beryl said, “she’s dead. Her ship was destroyed by a Cetagandan gravitic lance.”

Mama Katie shook her head. “I didn’t think I could hate war any more, after what those Barrayaran animals did during their war with Escobar. But the galaxy keeps giving me more reasons.”

Mama Katie continued, “from what you told us about the advice from your later Marilacan doctors, we were gravely concerned about your bone density. It turns out not to be as bad as we feared. It’s true that coming down to live on the planet wouldn’t be safe, though Dr. Keely has some thoughts he can share about that, if you like. But your bones are not just going to snap. Let me demonstrate a safe level of force on João.”

Mama Katie struck him with a fist. “Ow!” João said.

“It hurts, right? Anything less than that should be fine,” she said. “Especially in zero or low gravity, ordinary sexual contact should be fine as long as there’s no pain. And let me show you the right way to create a little pain, if you ever choose to. João, turn your back to me.”

Hesitantly, João complied, and Mama Katie put one hand around his upper arm, and the other between his shoulder and neck, on the same side. “It’s safe to squeeze evenly around the bone, like this.” Mama Katie tightened her grip on his arm, and João yelped. “But don’t press unevenly in the middle of the bone.” She twisted her arm, digging her thumb into his humerus. João bit his lip. “And don’t push against the joint, like this.” While pushing down with her other hand, Mama Katie pushed his arm up, making his shoulder feel like it would come out of socket.

“Hey!” João yelled, and Mama Katie let go. As he turned back around, he saw Beryl laughing silently.

“It’s not funny,” he said.

In a flat, administrator’s voice, Mama Katie said, “it’s a little funny,” and Beryl giggled.

“You’re really strong,” João sulked.

“You don’t live to be my age without working out,” Mama Katie responded. “And there was a pedagogical purpose. You'll never forget the lesson, and that will help keep you from hurting Beryl. Pain can be so useful, for so many different purposes…”

Mama Katie turned to Beryl. “Dr. Keely says you can take off those powered compression stockings. You don’t need them. Your circulation is fine. The blood is definitely not going to stop going into your legs. Your first surgeon very wisely implanted blood clot interdictors. You might sometimes experience edema, swelling, and if that happens, put the stockings back on. The doctor did give me a present for you.”

Mama Katie rummaged through one of the two bags, and pulled out two gold objects. “These ankle bracelets will monitor your circulation, and give a warning if anything starts to go wrong. That should make you feel safer in taking those stockings off.”

“Thank you,” Beryl said.

“The bottom line from Dr. Keely’s physical examination is that sex is safe for you both,” Mama Katie declared. “So let me dispel the curse of no sex that hangs over you.”

Mama Katie closed her eyes, bowed her head, and made a warding motion. “Go to it, young people. Rut. Screw. Fuck. There is no physical reason why you should not be having great sex.”

Beryl protested, “but I can’t feel the lower half of my body!”

Mama Katie pursed her lips and audibly sucked in a breath of air. “I’m sorry, my dear Beryl. That was not very empathetic of me. Just because I know how things will turn out doesn’t give me any right to forget or ignore how you are feeling. Getting you past a genitals-dominated view of sex is, of course, the focus of what we are here to work on today.”

She continued, “and I have to beg you for a little more patience, but I need you warmed up for what comes later, so first we are going to do a little playacting. Please get undressed.”

João and Beryl slipped out of their coveralls. It took some time for Beryl to work the tight black stockings down her legs. They looked impossibly thin, but when she put on the ankle bracelets, that helped make her legs look more natural.

Mama Katie reached into her bag and pulled out two Betan school outfits: burgundy shorts and short-sleeved, button-down collared shirts. “Put these on.”

As they did, Mama Katie explained, “you are a pair of teenagers, in puppy-love. You are on a shuttle flight to go join a field trip to see the rings of the second gas giant.” Mama Katie gestured at the sleepsack on the wall. “That is João’s father. He’s your chaperone, and he thinks you’re too young to be having sex. But he has fallen asleep. You are going to make out. Do it quietly so you don’t wake up dad. And since he could wake up at any time anyway, be discrete. If he catches you kissing, he’ll roll his eyes. But if he catches you with hands down into clothing, you’ll be separated for the rest of the field trip.”

“Now, here’s the important part,” Mama Katie added. “Beryl’s artificial arm is a regular, flesh-and-blood arm. And her legs are whole and healthy. In fact, she’s a swimmer, and she has the sexiest legs you have ever seen, João.”

Mama Katie opened the door. “I’ll be back in…whenever I feel like it.” She pointed down a hallway. “The mess is that way, right?” João nodded. “Have fun,” she said, and she left.

* * *

Beryl clamped down in the middle of a shriek when the door opened. “That’s not very discrete,” Mama Katie said. “How long ago did you give up on not waking up dad?”

Beryl and João smiled through hangdog expressions. “Um, a while ago,” João said.

“I’m sorry I took so long, but your culinary unit is amazing,” Mama Katie said, and she passed around a container of lemon meringues. “I’m afraid I filled up your recycler trying different options. OK, back to business. Beryl, how did it feel when João touched your legs. Did you mind?”

“No, it was nice,” Beryl said. “They’re part of me, even if I can’t feel them.”

“And João, do you find them repulsive?” Mama Katie asked.

“No!” Tiny dry pieces of meringue flew from João’s mouth, and they all took a moment to collect the bits. As they did, João said, “I love touching Beryl. All of her. It’s more fun to touch...other parts of her.” The lovers shared a look and a grin. “But I definitely don’t mind touching her legs.”

“Good, then no body parts are off limits,” Mama Katie said, almost to herself. Then she focused on them. “Next, we are going to work on some ways you can touch a woman above her waist that feel very good.”

Mama Katie removed her sarong, revealing a thin, wiry, but beautifully proportioned body. She undid her bun, and her long white hair streamed around her head.

“Let me show you the real reason I’m a Director at the Orb…”

* * *

Mama Katie looked around her. Beryl and João sat on the bed holding each other, eyes closed, smiling. The zero-G and low-G props she had brought were piled on the floor.

“You can see some of the benefits of very low gravity, like the one percent G we’re in now. If nothing else, it makes cleanup easier.” They opened their eyes and nodded.

Mama Katie bound up her hair in a quick bun. “I’m going to send you some videos and pamphlets. Some of it is basic information, like my favorite pornographic resources and how to buy whatever you need from the Orb’s store. I am also including a video on hacking neural implants, since you both have them.” Both João and Beryl perked up at this. “The jump pilot who made the video must have a monotonous job. There’s a part about using them to control sex toys, which seems fairly straightforward and fun. I don’t need to tell you to be careful with anything that looks like hacking your own nervous systems. You can cause permanent damage, and that would mean no more wormholes, João. But you’re adults, and much more technically competent than me, so you can figure it out.”

Mama Katie put on her sarong. “I think that just about does it.”

João said, “Mama Katie, can you stay forever?”

Beryl snorted.

Mama Katie gave them a warm smile. “You’re lovely people, you two, but I have a wonderful family and the best job in the galaxy.”

* * *

As the Susurrus left the orbit of Beta Colony with a load of computer equipment, Beryl said, “where are we going next?”

“To the Union of Free Habitats.”

“The Union of what?” she asked.

“Free Habitats,” João said.

“I’ve never heard of it.”

“I’m not surprised,” João said. “Their population is pretty small, only about a million, all living on separate stations. It used to be pretty remote, but new wormhole routes were mapped, and now they get a fair amount of traffic as a resupply point and stopover, servicing ships, providing transfer facilities, what have you.”

“Sounds boring,” Beryl said.

“You may be surprised…”

* * *

“Hello freighter Susurrus,” an alto voice greeted João. Both the voice and the face on the vidscreen were familiar, but João couldn’t quite place them. “This is Graf Station. Are you aware that you’ve selected a null G berth for docking? Those are typically used by the locals. We do have full gravity berths available.”

“We know it’s a microgravity berth,” João said. “That was our preference.” And then he placed the face. “Do you have a relative in the Dendarii mercenaries?”

An inscrutable reaction flickered across the face on the vidscreen. “And how do you know the Dendarii?”

“They once helped us transport some Marilacans. About 10,000 passengers.”

“João!” Warm recognition spread on the face on the vidscreen, but it was quickly extinguished by horror. “You haven’t brought Zelaya, have you?” João shook his head, and the speaker sighed with relief, then said, “I’m sorry if I offended...”

“No, that’s the appropriate reaction, Captain Thorne.”

Thorne winced. “It’s Assistant Portmaster Thorne now.” Its face brightened. “And as portmaster, I do believe I’ll have to inspect the Susurrus personally when you dock, to find out what news you’re carrying out of Marilac and Beta Colony.”

* * *

“Beryl, this is Portmaster Thorne.”

Thorne kissed Beryl’s hand. “Call me Bel. What amazing red hair you have.”

“Thank you.” Beryl smiled. “João, are all of your galactic friends hermaphrodites?”

João laughed. “Now you’ve met both of the herms I know.”

The three of them moved over to the mess, and João explained about consulting a hermaphrodite he’d previously met at the Orb. Thorne appeared to bite back a comment, and just nodded while Beryl described her injuries and her need to remain in microgravity. “The therapist who came up to the Susurrus, Mama Katie, really helped us.”

“They sent Mama Katie? I can only imagine that she helped you,” Thorne said with a wink. “Did you know she has five children and ten grandchildren?”

“Twelve,” João corrected.

“And fourteen great-grandchildren,” Beryl added.

Thorne said, “I don’t know where she finds the energy. That’s three or four full-time jobs. But it definitely makes sense that they sent her up to you. You are ‘coupling.’ And in a ‘zero-G spot.’” When they didn’t laugh, Thorne said, “before your time, I guess. And before my time…Anyway, I suppose Beryl’s need to stay in microgravity is what brought you here, to meet the quaddies.”

“The what?” Beryl asked.

Thorne turned swiftly toward João, eyes narrowed. “You did tell her about the quaddies, right?”

“I…” João stammered, “I wanted it to be a surprise.”

Thorne spoke slowly, a hint of a smile on its face. “I’m not sure you’ve thought this through, João. For one thing, the quaddies don’t especially enjoy the reaction of legged humans who haven’t been prepared...”

“Is anyone going to tell me what a quaddie is?” Beryl demanded.

“Here,” Thorne said, pulling out a small handheld console and finding a photo. “This is Nicol. We live together.”

Beryl smiled, and then her smile disappeared. “Oh!”

“Nicol is a quaddie,” Thorne explained. “They are a genetically altered population, created at about the same time as hermaphrodites, actually. Just after the development of uterine replicators, and before artificial gravity. They were meant to be optimized for zero gravity...”

Beryl stared at the picture. The woman on the screen had four arms. Two of them were located where her legs otherwise would be. “I can definitely see how that would be helpful.”

Thorne said, “they also maintain muscle tone and bone density in free-fall.” João watched a hungry-jealous look cross Beryl’s face. If Thorne had noticed, it made no sign.

“And everyone who lives in the Union of Free Habitats is a quaddie?” There was a dangerous tone to Beryl’s voice.

“There are a few thousand of us downsiders, here,” Thorne said. “But it’s mostly quaddies...”

Beryl turned to João, eyes blazing through scarlet lashes. “And that’s why we came here? João, we are definitely not partners. Not if you can’t treat me like one.”

João looked at Thorne, eyes wide, beseeching. Thorne made no effort to hide a wicked smile, as it looked again at the handheld computer. “Oh, look at the time. I have important… portmastering to do.” Thorne ’s smile became warmer, more generous. “But please do join us for dinner tonight at our home.” 

* * *

Any continuing storminess between João and Beryl was well hidden by the time they arrived at the home shared by Thorne and Nicol. The dinner conversation touched on the Marilac war, but it mainly focused on all things quaddie. Beryl was entranced by the descriptions of quaddie architecture, gardens, athletics, low-G aquatics, art, and culture. Nicol promised to guide Beryl and João on several excursions, and invited them to attend the Minchenko zero-G ballet, where Nicol played hammer-dulcimer in the orchestra.

About an hour after dinner, Nicol excused herself to get some sleep and Thorne invited them to stay for one more drink.

“I want to talk to you about something, João,” Thorne said. “It has to do with...our previous business.” Thorne pushed its chin out toward Beryl, with a questioning look.

“It’s OK,” João said. “She can hear anything I can hear.”

Thorne spoke slowly. “I’m not sure Zelaya did you much of a favor when she gave you the Susurrus. Or as I knew it, the Adrestia.”

“What do you mean?” João asked.

“Your mass detector jammers are more than five years old now,” Thorne said. “And the secret is out on what the Susurrus is, and how it was used by Beta Colony in the war. When you come through a wormhole now, any military vessels with modern scanners may think that you’re leading an invasion force through. And the last thing they’ll want to do is give you time to jump back and tell your friends what you saw. They may shoot first.”

João looked stricken. Beryl said, “Zelaya knew.”

Thorne gently said, “she never struck me as stupid.”

“No,” João said. His face had gone gray. “Nor are the people who buy and sell ships. I’m the only stupid one here. The Susurrus is a worthless deathtrap.”

“I’m not sure I’d call it worthless,” Thorne said. “In fact, I can think of at least one group of mutual friends who might find a use for it, after upgrading its jammers.”

“The Dendarii,” João whispered.

“Among others,” Thorne said. “They’re not the only mercenary fleet out there.”

“But they’re the only ones I know how to reach. Bel, would you contact them for me, and see if they’ll buy the Susurrus?”

Thorne clasped João’s hand in both of its hands. “I’ll see what I can do.”

“But without the Susurrus, what will we do?” Beryl asked.

“We still have the Rachne,” João said.

“That repair scow you use for an escape pod? There’s always a lot of work for a ship like that in the Union,” Thorne said. “And I know they’re always looking for jump pilots to carry messages through the local wormholes so they can be broadcast on to the next wormhole. It’s not exciting work, but…”

João said, “I’ve had enough excitement. A job like that sounds really good right now.”

After a few more minutes, João and Beryl were saying their goodbyes. As Thorne watched them go, it said softly to itself, “Ellie, you owe me one.” 

* * *

_A few years later_

“I think Bixby’s lower arms look like yours, Nicol.”

“That’s ridiculous, Beryl! You know all I contributed was the standard quaddie gene sequences. You could have pulled them out of any quaddie. The shape of all four of his arms comes from you and João.”

“Well, it makes me happy that his quaddie genes came from his godmother.”

“Ackle,” Bixby agreed.

“We’ve missed you at the ballet,” Nicol said.

“I think it’s going to be a little while before we make it back,” Beryl said, attempting to fend off three tiny hands grabbing at her aquamarine curls. “At least until Bix is sleeping through the night. We’re just so tired all the time.”

“The performers miss you,” Nicol said.

“The performers?...” Beryl responded.

“When they first come out and look at the audience, they tend to look for you, in your usual seat,” Nicol said.

“What do you mean?” Beryl asked.

A smile was working its way across Nicol’s face. “When they turn out the lights in the audience section, well, you glow.”

Beryl looked away from Nicol, at her son. “I’m never going back there again.”

“I once heard one of the choreographers tell a dancer to line himself up opposite you.”

“Definitely never seeing the ballet again.”

Nicol was grinning openly. “We sometimes take a pool on what color your hair will be.”

Despite herself, Beryl laughed. “I’m sorry, Bixby, but you’re never going to see the Minchenko Ballet. Your mama would die of shame if she went back there again.”

“I’m not allowed to bet anymore,” Nicol said. “They figured out that I’m your friend, so I usually know what color you chose that day.”

Beryl changed the subject in the only way that came to mind. “How’s Bel.”

Despite the null G, it was like a weight fell on Nicol. “On good days, Bel is still Bel.”

“And on bad days?”

Bixby chose that moment to leap over to his godmother. “Ooof,” Nicol said, reaching out to steady herself on a wall. “You’re getting big.” She kissed the top of Bixby’s head. “There are more good days than bad. But it feels like that Cetagandan parasite aged Bel about ten years. Twenty for a Betan, I guess.”

“I thought we were safe here, from Cetagandan haut and ghem, from Barrayaran Vor, Marilacan First Ministers, and Jacksonian Houses.” Beryl said. “Do you think they ever think about the damage they do, all across the galaxy?”

Nicol was pensive. “Well, the Cetagandans did give Bel the Warrant of the Celestial House.”

Beryl frowned. “That funny little scroll? I think Bel would probably prefer to have its full health back.”

“No question,” Nicol said. “But the Cetagandans and the Barrayarans did all they could for Bel. I was there.”

Beryl said, “maybe the Betans could come up with something that would help.”

“A Betan rejuvenation treatment?” This made Nicol laugh at some private joke. She handed the baby back to his mother. “Bel has been my Betan rejuvenation treatment. And I suppose you and João got yours, from the Orb.”

Beryl smiled. “It did feel like Mama Katie took years of pain and worry from us.”

“Maybe that’s the secret of the Betan rejuvenation treatment,” Nicol mused. “It’s different for everyone.”

Beryl protested, “but Bel’s the only actual Betan of all of us. It’s not fair that Bel doesn’t get one.”

Nicol said, “I think Bel already did, though it was only half Betan.” Beryl gave her a puzzled look, but Nicol only shook her head and smiled.


End file.
